Since the emergence of modernity, both the traditional forms of normative production and the classical regulative procedures and structures have been derived from one particular concept of state: a concept assuming the state’s sovereignty over society. But in a time of globalization, new forms of normative genesis have emerged alongside their older counterparts; within them, the principle of sovereignty has been replaced by a principle of cooperation. A key question that here emerges is whether this development implies the state’s withdrawal from the process of establishing norms.

In any event, at present we can observe the development of new normative systems running parallel to the state’s generation of legal norms; these new systems are characterized by their societal—hence exclusively private or pseudo-state—origins, and by their global extension. In other words, the primacy of state regulation is being placed in question through new formulas for societal self-regulation with a global reach. Alongside the conditions of rule organized by the state, new hierarchies are surfacing that cross over political and cultural borders.